The 14th Japanese Studies Association of Australia (JSAA) Conference was held at the University of Adelaide, from the 3rd to 6th July, 2005.
The theme for this year was 'Japan- Negotiating the 21st Century' and there were about 200 participants from Australia, Japan, United States, some
Asian countries and New Zealand. There were four keynote speakers and 62 breakout sessions, most of them on modern history and social conditions.
I went to the sessions on gender studies, colonial history of Asia under Japanese occupation, Japanese history under occupation and diplomatic
history of Japan. Sessions on language, literature, legal studies and history of pre-modern Japan were relatively small in number but present.
The notable feature of this year's conference was the comparative sessions on 'Japanese Studies in Asian countries'.
The active presence of Ph D students was more evident than ever and most of them gave papers.
Three librarians from the Japanese Resources Library Group of Australia (JARLGA), including me, organized a session together on library
collections and services, on the third day. Please see the attached report. Eiko Sakaguchi from the University of Maryland Library talked about
the special collection called The Prange Collection. I talked about the Harold Williams Collection and the Harold White Fellowship of the NLA.
Michelle Hall from the University of Melbourne Library showed a couple of useful and freely available electronic resources. A few established
academics took part in the session by chairing or being discussants. Our special thanks goes to Prof. Vera Mackie from the University of Melbourne
and Tessa Morris-Suzuki from the Australian National University. The small lecture room was full with about twenty people.
The session was well accepted in general, according to the evaluation sheets. But one student commented that he/she would have liked to
get more specific information on the area of his/her interest from the session, not just general information.
I believe we can learn from this session and continue working on what we can do to make our collection more widely known in conferences
such as this.
Report on the library session
Session title: Library Resources and Research Funds: Special Collections from Prange Collection (Maryland, U.S.A), Harold S. Williams
Collection (National Library of Australia); Online Resources Update.
Speakers:
- Eiko Sakaguchi, University of Maryland Library (email: eikos@umd.edu)
The Prange Collection is said to be "the collection of publications, published after the World War II and censored by the Occupational
Forces", but this collection includes more than that and there may be some other purpose for collecting some of them. The talk was to investigate
the controversial origins of some of the collection. (Eiko Sakaguchi's presentation appears elsewhere in this issue)
- Mayumi Shinozaki, National Library of Australia (email: mshinoza@nla.gov.au)
The Harold S. Williams Collection is a unique collection of books, manuscripts, pamphlets and ephemera on the history of foreign settlement
in Japan, particularly in Kobe. The collection's founder, Mr. Williams, had also set up a fund which would enable researchers outside Canberra to
come and carry out research at the National Library of Australia. The talk covered both the Harold Williams Collection and the Harold White
Fellowship.
- Michelle Hall, University of Melbourne Library (email: hall@unimelb.edu.au)
Some researchers are still not aware of the usefulness of some general and free online resources. Michelle Hall demonstrated three such
resources:
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